Give me your automobile knowledge

[Doppleganger]

I will need to shop for a car. I'll be driving about 50 miles per day in heavy snow conditions during the winter. Potentially 3 feet on an un-plowed road. Could anyone share what they use or have any ideas on cars that work?

My criteria, in order of how essential:

-4WD
-engine block heater
-good gas mileage (25+)
-high off the ground
-< $30,000
-not long
-space to hold groceries


Truck, SUV, whatever goes. Used is alright.

[Loki]

I personally don't know much about specific car models, all of my knowledge I've generally gleaned from various friends who are mechanics and from UK's Top Gear.

If you're looking to save money but still have a good car, avoid German. From a general standpoint, German cars have high maintenance fees. I don't know if they break down more, but they're generally over-engineered, making them very difficult to repair on your own and usually have to pay for their special repair service or likely a higher rate at a normal repair shop.

Japanese cars (and their American clones) are generally standardized and very easy to maintain.

[McSweeney]

I already told him this over AIM, but I will also relay this advice to all of you youngsters out there who may be buying a car sometime in the future:

Never buy brand new. It's just not worth it. I bought a brand new 2008 Subaru Impreza for about $25,000 CDN. You know when I decided that I will never buy brand new again? When my dad bought a used Porsche Cayenne in good condition for about $35,000. In other words, he bought a frickin PORSCHE for slightly more than I bought a brand new, unremarkable car.

[Talon87]

Craftsmanship: the hierarchy (for cars widely available in the American market) goes something like this:

German > Japanese > Korean > American

American cars (e.g. Ford, Chevrolet, other General Motors cars, and the now-defunct Chrysler) are well-known for their cheap parts: they don't last long, they cost comparatively less to replace, they are comparatively easy to replace, and so you will find yourself replacing them often and paying much more for the car during the course of its lifetime than you did upfront.

German cars are at the other end of the parabolic spectrum. Unlike their American counterparts, German cars are well-known for their high craftsmanship. Whether it's the expensive Mercedes-Benz or the economic Volkswagon, with German engineering you get parts that last a long time and do the job well. ... Iiiiiiiin theory. In practice, every car has parts that fail with enough time and use -- even German cars -- and the replacement parts in German cars are often costly. Some models will even require special training and/or equipment to repair properly. If American cars cost you (say) $500 x 20 visits to the mechanic, German cars will cost you (say) $2,500 x 4 visits. You're out $10,000 either way.

Which brings us to Northeast Asian cars. The reason that Japanese cars took off in this country in the 1980s include a variety of factors such as better fuel efficiency and higher safety grades. But one of the biggest appeals was that they lied somewhere in the valley of the parabola, between the American peak and the German peak, as they broke down much less frequently than their American counterparts while also costing less to repair than their German counterparts. Say they cost on average $1,000 to repair times 7.5 repairs in a lifetime. That's $7,500 lifetime addition to the dealership quote vs. the armchair $10,000 for the other two. That's appealing. When American craftsmanship used to mean something, people might not have gone for cheap-o Toyotas and Hondas. But by the 1980s, the American automobile industry had succumbed to the cancerous American business model of planned obsolescence and you no longer had the craftsmanship seen in previous generations of cars. Once that happened, there was really no reason not to buy Japanese. Same cheapness (and eventually the Japanese would be even less cheap), better fuel efficiency, fewer parts failures.

Korean cars are similar in principle to the early Japanese cars. A Hyundai Sonata is about as good as a Toyota Camry and I'd say better than a Honda Accord. A Hyundai Elantra is comparable with a Toyota Corolla and I'd say better than a Honda Civic. But the Korean car is typically a cheaper buy than the Toyota. Toyota has become the premier brand of poor and middle class men's cars, I guess you could say.

Note: This was true up until 2008. With the three major American automobile companies declaring bankruptcy or coming close to it, there was an admission of need to reform, to become companies that made products that consumers believed in and believed were competitive with their Japanese (low/middle class) and German (high class) counterparts. I have no idea to what degrees if any the companies actually have reformed, but I do know that there have been many attempts to convince the public that cars like the Chevy Volt are the best middle class cars available on the market. The cars are still too young though for me to know whether they bear a stronger resemblance to 2000-era Japanese cars or to 2000-era American ones.

[Schala]

Disclaimer: I personally know fuckall about cars, but given that you seem to be in a similar situation to my brother, I figured I'd share his experience. Hopefully it will help?

My brother recently moved to the far north of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, near the bridge. They get hoards of lake effect snow, and generally seem to have at least a few feet on the ground for a good part of winter (they had three feet before we even had enough to stick to the ground this December). He also has to drive around the surrounding area, on both sides of the bridge, for his job.

His coworkers (who also drive quite a bit as part of their jobs), and pretty much everyone that's in the area for the winter, swear by Subaru SUVs. He still had his tiny little Toyota hybrid when he moved, and that particular car has fared horribly, so he's been looking at a Subaru as a replacement. Quick glance shows that they should fit most, if not all of your requirements (though once again, not anywhere near an expert), so I would suggest at least taking a look at them?

I hope this was at least vaguely helpful.